Page:Chipperfield--Unseen Hands.djvu/212

200 "I sat down beside the bed and lifted my wife's hand, holding it close. She smiled faintly at me; then her eyes glittering with fever followed the Risby woman around the room. I had never liked that nurse; she was officious, and she seemed unwilling at any time to leave me alone with my wife. Now she kept pottering about, moving bottles and rattling the cracked ice until I thought I should shout. Then she picked up a blanket and went over to the couch to place it about Effie—Miss Meade—and the moment her back was turned my wife's hand tightened on mine. 'Dick,' she whispered, 'send her away. Don't let her come in here any more. She's killing me.' I tried to soothe her, thinking of course that she was off her head; but she clawed at my hand, and the most piteous expression came over her poor face.

"‘Oh, won't you believe? Isn't there going to be any help for me? I'm not crazy, Dick dear, I know. She pretends to be kind, but she makes me suffer more all the time, and there's something—something diabolical in her eyes. For God's sake, keep her away from me! I tell you she means my death!’"

For an instant there swept across the detective's mind that sentence uttered by Gerda: "Watch their eyes!" Was it of Miss Risby that she had been trying to warn him? But Miss Risby had already gone. …

"Mr. Lorne, did your wife mention Miss Risby's name? Could she not have been speaking of the day nurse?"

"No. Her eyes were fixed on the Risby woman all the time; and when she turned and came toward the bed my wife shrank back in her pillows as far as she could get, holding to my hand with all her feeble strength. 'Dick,'